Up
by syrrah
Summary: Bella Swan had her first kiss at a school dance, and she'd been so nervous she was actually sick. A year later, the same boy has approached her at a party. She's got a huge crush on him, but she's still nervous. Bella, Jasper


I started this for the Summer Loving challenge, but it's a non-canon pairing and it doesn't contain any smut, so it couldn't be entered. It's fluff without plot, really. FWP.

I don't own the characters.

**Up**

Spin the bottle? Oh, please, I didn't want to play. I'd been kissed once before at a school dance, and the combination of someone else's saliva, and someone else's tongue in my mouth had made me stagger away and actually throw up. And it hadn't just been the mouth stuff. He'd held me close, and I'd felt what was going on in his pants, and he'd moved against me and it just felt weird and horrible.

And this was a small town. He was in my class. I'd had to see him day in and day out ever since. He'd even called me a few times afterwards, for what proved to be really awkward chats that I cut off within minutes. What a dweeb. Although, of course, I thought it was me that was the dweeb. I thought he was actually pretty cool, and he was certainly good-looking. Jasper Whitlock. Tall, skinny, and puffy-lipped with tousled blond hair. Most of the girls in my year thought he was gorgeous, and I did too, until the kissing. I didn't know if there was something wrong with him, or something wrong with me after that little episode.

No-one else knew what had happened, because I'd never told. I didn't want to discredit either of us with inadequacy.

That was when I was sixteen, last year. I'd managed to simply not get myself into any more compromising situations since, but here I was now at Jessica's impromptu party on a Thursday night, and her parents were out, and people were seriously suggesting Spin The Bottle.

I went to the bathroom and hid for a while, hoping the game would move to the basement or somewhere, and I would be eliminated by default.

When I ventured out my immediate circle of friends was nowhere to be seen, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Jessica's family were pretty well off, and their house was nice, and I knew it well. I cautiously made my way back downstairs and to the double doors leading off the dining room onto the patio, and then down onto the grass. They've got massive rhododendrons in their garden, and it's all been landscaped to be a showcase out there. Successfully. They even have these up-lights implanted in the lawn that turn on at night to show off the pretty colors in the summer.

I wandered around, and I could hear faint giggles and laughing coming from behind me, mixed with the throb of music. Maybe the kissing games were taking place in the study? Well, that was the place not to be, then, with my peculiar kissing disability.

"Hey, Bella," a soft voice said. It interrupted my contemplation of my unfortunate aversion to something everyone in the world but me surely enjoyed, and I spun. I knew that voice, even as I turned, and I willed it not to be him.

"Why aren't you inside with everyone else?" he asked.

Jasper.

He was such a bad dresser it was comical, but it actually added to his appeal. I didn't really give him any sort of serious check out, but I could see a collared shirt underneath a v-neck sweater. It looked like his grandmother picked his clothes out for him, but he had an easy charm that enabled him to get away away with it.

"Uh, I could kind of see where it was all going in there, and it's not really my scene," I admitted.

"No?" he asked, and there was a wooden bench in front of us. He sat, and much as I didn't want to, I sat too, as it would have been rude not to.

"Why aren't_ you_ in there?" I asked, and one corner of his mouth turned up, wryly.

"It's not my scene, either," he answered.

Silence reigned between us then, and threatened to draw out to embarrassing proportions. I wracked my brain trying to think of something to say, and the best I could come up with was, "Did you know - ?"

He started to speak at the same time. "Do I - ?"

We both said, "Sorry, you first - " in perfect unison, but being a gentleman, Jasper held a hand out, palm up, as if issuing an invitation. He looked expectant.

I had been going to say something really lame. It was so totally embarrassing.

"Did you know the rhododendrons on the Stanley property are amongst the oldest in the state?" I mumbled. _Everyone_ knew, because Jessica kept telling us all, over and over again.

"No, that's very interesting," Jasper said, politely. 'How old are they?"

"Over a hundred years," I answered. No boy on earth would find that fact interesting. I felt tongue-tied, because I didn't know how to talk to boys.

"They carry their age well. I would have thought they were in their early twenties," he responded, and I dared a smile. He was trying to make me feel not ridiculous, which was very nice of him.

"Rhododendrons are poisonous to horses," I added, god knows why.

"I'm glad I left my pony at home," Jasper said, and now he was smiling at me.

"What were you going to say, before I so rudely interrupted?" I asked, and his smile grew wider.

"It doesn't matter. Tell me more about rhododendrons. Are they your particular interest or are you a broad spectrum botanist?"

"I did an assignment on them last year. If you eat honey made from rhododendron flowers you can hallucinate," I said.

"I want some of that," he said. "I want to think I'm surrounded by pink flowers."

We _were_ surrounded by pink flowers. We were sitting amongst some of the oldest and biggest pink flower-bearing trees in Washington.

"Did you already have some?" I asked him, "And slip it to me when I didn't notice?"

He took my hand and pulled me up, and walked with me amongst the shrubs. They were all different sizes, some five or six feet, and others towering well overhead, probably twenty feet or more. His hand was warm and lovely, and I couldn't think why he was out here with me when he could have been talking to pretty girls who didn't make such weird attempts at conversational observations, and who could flirt. He was very popular, although he didn't have a girlfriend. Speculation was rife as to who Jasper Whitlock favored, or paid attention to, and here he was with Bella Swan, widely considered the school weirdo.

"You want to go to the grotto?" he asked me then, and I pulled back on his hand.

Jessica's parents had bought this place from some eccentric old English family, whose forbears had tried to recreate a sort of Victorian English stately garden. They'd constructed a cement cave-like little niche amongst trees and flowers, with crystals embedded in the walls and ceiling, and ledges all about with candles on them. I'd been in there a few times with Jessica and other friends, and we lit the candles and got stoned as the crystals shot sparks of reflections from the tiny lights, and it was private and pretty. There was only one reason a girl and a boy would go there together. I couldn't go with Jasper.

"No," I said.

He still held my hand, and he took my other hand and faced me. "I won't do anything you don't want me to do. I promise," he said. "It's a lovely night, it's summer, it's like faeryland in there, we can just sit and imagine... Please don't be nervous of me. I'm not some scary monster."

We were both seventeen, and I'd known him since we were five. If there was anything scary about Jasper Whitlock, I would have known it. The only scary thing was that it was a magical place, and he was gorgeous, and it was a night when everyone we knew was making out like crazy, and the last time his mouth got near mine I'd vomited. I was so nervous I was shaking, but I nodded slowly, and we followed the narrow winding path lined with smooth river stones and ferns, with lanterns guiding our way, and we stooped to get in there, through the little entrance. I'm small, but people must have been much shorter than Jasper in Victorian times. He had to crouch.

Once inside there was easily room to stand, though it was almost pitch dark, with just a little gentle illumination coming through from the lamps outside. Jasper had a lighter, which he flicked on and there were dozens of tealights that the Stanleys' gardener must have kept replenished all the time. Jasper started to light them.

There were wooden seats lining the rounded interior where you could sit, and I sat and stared into the fountain set into one of the walls, which my friends had remarked often enough looked like female genitalia. Really. It was vertical, a groove in one wall with rock flares on either side that really, really looked like labia, and a little nub at the top that the water trickled over that looked like - never mind.

"Bella?" Jasper asked softly, and he pulled me down next to him on one of the seats. I didn't really know what was going on, except that there was faery magic happening, little blinking sparkles and juttering darkness, and a boy too beautiful to want me, but here we were, away from the game where any girl in school would kiss him for nothing. I wouldn't kiss him for all the tea in China.

"Bella, do you remember that dance last year?" he asked softly. "When I kissed you, and you ran away?"

We were sitting at an angle to one another and our knees were touching, though our hips were well apart. I knew that his eyes were gold, while in flickering candlelight they could have been any color at all. I knew that his lashes were thick and charcoal. I knew he was very pale, and his tangle of wavy blond hair lay over darker strands underneath, and I knew all sorts of other things from the million observations I'd made since last year. I knew he excelled at science and art and ancient history and found math boring. I knew all sorts of random details about Jasper Whitlock, including what he tasted like.

"Yes," I answered.

"I'm sorry. I'd never kissed anyone before and I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, and I just went for you and slobbered. It must have been awful," he said. "You pretty much wouldn't speak to me afterwards."

I shrugged. "Ah, I had a lot of homework that quarter," I said. "I was really busy."

"It's okay. You just didn't like it," Jasper said.

He held my hand, and he threaded his fingers through mine and sat with his head leant back against the sparkly wall and his eyes closed. I gazed at him in freedom, at his cheekbones, and his long nose, and the stubble on his chin and upper lip where a beard was struggling to come through. His hair was wild, no styling, just locks springing untamed from his forehead and spilling down, streaked with more colors than I could begin to count.

"You're perving on me," he murmured, eyes remaining closed, but lips smiling.

"Pardon?" I said. "Did you say something? I was looking at the sky."

The sky wasn't visible from in here, as he must have known. He rolled his head towards me and the smile was gone.

"Would you like to dance?" he asked. I could just hear the music, the pulse of the bass and not much more. I didn't know why he would ask me, but it was as good an idea as anything else, and if we were dancing I wouldn't feel so stupid about not being able to think of anything to say.

We stood, and he pulled me lightly to him, putting my hands up to his shoulders, and placing his lightly on my waist. He ignored the rhythm we could hear beating from the direction of the house, and just swayed slowly with me.

"Bella - " he started eventually, sounding hesitant. "I think about you all the time. Is it okay to say that?"

I was surprised. I'd never had any reason to think that he thought about me. But truthfully, I thought about him all the time too. There was nowhere to hide and he was looking down at me, and my hair was up in a ponytail and didn't cover my blush. It was dark in there though, so I hoped he just couldn't see my stained cheeks.

"Ah, it's okay," I whispered.

He was quiet, still swaying, still holding me ever so gently.

"Do you mind being here with me? Do you want me to take you back?" he asked, when I just didn't say anything.

"No, this is nice," I said, and my heart was starting to hammer. The blush hadn't subsided, if anything, I could feel I was redder. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had spread all the way down my throat and bloomed on my chest.

His hands moved then, coming up to my face, and tilting it upwards so that I had to look at him.

"I want us to kiss again," he murmured. "But not like last time. Show me how _you_ want to kiss, Bella." And he closed his eyes.

I was frozen, but he wasn't watching me and I could just gaze at him. Other girls said he was sexy, but sexy wasn't on my radar yet. I just thought he was beautiful. And I was stunned that he would stand in front of me like this, eyes shut and waiting for me, making himself vulnerable, trusting me.

Not really knowing quite what to do, I raised myself up on tiptoes. Could I put my mouth to his? Did I want to? I faltered a little, losing my balance, but he was holding me and I knew he wouldn't let me fall. His lips were so close, all of him was so close, and my fear of what had happened last time was turning to confusion, and turning to something else. He'd sought me out, he'd taken my hand, he'd brought me somewhere quiet and lovely, and he'd asked me to kiss him, and given me every chance to refuse. I didn't want to refuse.

I pressed my lips to his in a featherlight kiss, and drew back immediately. His eyes flew open.

"Bella Swan, you are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," he said, with a breathtaking smile. "I think I just gave you my heart."

I had absolutely no idea how to respond, so I simply stared at him.

A frown appeared between his eyebrows.

"You don't have to say anything. I just thought I'd put that out there," he said, sounding slightly nervous. "Shall we get back now? People might have noticed we've been gone. Rumors will start. Your reputation will be ruined."

My reputation would be lit up like a neon light if there was a rumor that I'd disappeared at a party for half an hour with Jasper Whitlock.

I followed him out, and walked across the lawn with him. His shoulders were hunched, his hands in his pockets. He looked defensive, and possibly upset.

"I'm sorry about that, Bella," he said after a while. "Jesus, it took me all this time to get up the nerve to talk to you after that pathetic incident when I got everything wrong, and now I've got it wrong again. I'm such an ass."

"No, Jasper, _I'm_ sorry. Really. I just didn't know what to say. What you said just really came out of nowhere."

"Not for me, it didn't. I've liked you for years. But I have no finesse. Give me another twelve months before you write me off, okay? I might just have learned how to be less of a dickhead."

Oh, no - how could he think that about himself? I reached towards him and tucked my hand through his arm.

"I don't think you're a dickhead," I told him.

"Really?" His smile was returning. "Okay, not a dickhead. I can live with that, for now."

We got back to the house and it seemed the party was starting to break up. No-one appeared to have noticed that we'd been missing.

"Can I give you a lift home, Bella?" Jasper asked me, and I nodded, hand still tucked through the crook of his elbow. He'd clenched his arm to his side, grinning wickedly, so I couldn't pull away without having to put in some effort, and we walked to his car.

We got back to my house and he turned the motor off.

"Do you think you'd like to go on a date sometime with someone who's not a dickhead?" he asked.

I'd never been on a date with anyone, dickhead or otherwise. It sounded good, though. A date with Jasper.

"Um, I guess so," I answered shyly.

He cleared his throat.

"I got a head start on you with this, so you're the one setting the pace," he said. "Would you like to go out this weekend?"

His mouth looked soft and pretty, and he was sitting there, not making the slightest move to close the gap between us. My kissing aversion was feeling a little different than it had felt for the past year. It felt longer ago and farther away.

With a swallow, I leaned towards him and put my mouth to his for the second time that night. No tongues, no movement, just the feel of it. I felt fine. I felt really, really fine. It was a start.

"Yes, this weekend would be nice," I said, shyly.

"I'll look forward to it. Goodnight, Bella," Jasper whispered. "I'll call you."

My phone rang as soon as I'd closed the front door of my house behind me.

"I didn't just hallucinate you kissing me because of the rhododendron honey did I?" he asked. I could tell he was smiling.

"I don't know," I answered. "Maybe it was a shared hallucination. I can still feel you on my lips."

The phone went silent.

I mentally winced at having said something so, I don't know, forward, or unwelcome, or just so stupid.

Then I heard him clearing his throat. "Me too," he said, so quietly it was like I dreamt it. "See you at school tomorrow?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Can't wait," he said.

And I hugged myself in bed that night, and I'd never felt that way before. High, dizzy, happy, floating, delirious. I really didn't know which way was up. There was no down, though. No down.

.

.

.

All I want to do for the rest of my life is kiss Jackson Rathbone. Yep, pretty much.


End file.
